The notion that embryonic stem-cell research amounts to the killing of babies has always struck me as a pseudo-moralistic falsehood having no relationship with science.

A human embryo is not a baby. It’s not even a fetus, which is defined by Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as follows: “an unborn or unhatched vertebrate esp. after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specif: a developing human from usu. three months after conception to birth.”

Embryonic stem cells exist only at the earliest stages of embryonic development. A three- or four-day old human embryo, called a blastocyst, consists of about 100 cells. By comparison, the brain of a common house fly — note, just the brain, not the whole fly — consists of more than 100,000 cells.

A blastocyst has no nervous system, no heart, and no specialized tissues. Many of the cells are still undifferentiated, meaning they can become any type of cell in the human body. This gives embryonic stem cells an advantage over adult stem cells in the scientific search for therapeutic breakthroughs for disease and injury. It raises the possibility that embryonic stem cells can be differentiated by researchers into any tissue or organ in the human body — a promise that does not pertain to adult stem cells.

Despite these facts, THIS GUY from the American Family Association is bad-mouthing the Ice Bucket Challenge on grounds that it raises money for embryonic stem cell research by the ALS Association, which he equates with killing babies.

The notion that embryonic stem-cell research amounts to the killing of babies has always struck me as a pseudo-moralistic falsehood having no relationship with science.

A human embryo is not a baby. It’s not even a fetus, which is defined by Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as follows: “an unborn or unhatched vertebrate esp. after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specif: a developing human from usu. three months after conception to birth.”

Embryonic stem cells exist only at the earliest stages of embryonic development. A three- or four-day old human embryo, called a blastocyst, consists of about 100 cells. By comparison, the brain of a common house fly — note, just the brain, not the whole fly — consists of more than 100,000 cells.

A blastocyst has no nervous system, no heart, and no specialized tissues. Many of the cells are still undifferentiated, meaning they can become any type of cell in the human body. This gives embryonic stem cells an advantage over adult stem cells in the scientific search for therapeutic breakthroughs for disease and injury. It raises the possibility that embryonic stem cells can be differentiated by researchers into any tissue or organ in the human body — a promise that does not pertain to adult stem cells.

Despite these facts, THIS GUY from the American Family Association is bad-mouthing the Ice Bucket Challenge on grounds that it raises money for embryonic stem cell research by the ALS Association, which he equates with killing babies.